Chris Lombardi puts defense and security under the spotlight, as he shares his takes on recent NATO and EU cooperation and provides insight into the company’s own long-term strategic partnerships in Europe.

Three trends are currently driving the global electricity sector: decarbonization, decentralization and differentiation. Utilities are making significant contributions to mitigate carbon emissions, while a technology revolution is …

The strife of Brian

The meeting of EU finance ministers on Tuesday (15 February) was a chance for Brian Lenihan, Ireland’s finance minister, to bid farewell to his counterparts.

Lenihan has been finance minister since May 2008, when he replaced Brian Cowen, who had moved into the prime minister’s office (which he is now about to leave). Ireland is holding a general election on 25 February and Fianna Fáil, the governing party, will be ejected from office by voters angry at the party’s handling of Ireland’s financial crisis (Cowen has already indicated that he is standing down).

Lenihan is likely to be replaced as finance minister by Michael Noonan, a former leader of Fine Gael and a minister in the 1980s and 1990s. If the Labour party does well in the elections, and stitches together a coalition deal with Fine Gael, it might be rewarded with the finance ministry job – which might be a chance for itscurrent spokeswoman on finance, Joan Burton (not to be confused with John Bruton, Fine Gael’s last prime minister).

Two years is about the average survival time for a finance minister in the EU, although the current line-up includes Portugal’s Fernando Teixeira dos Santos, who has been in the job since July 2005. Anders Borg has been finance minister of Sweden since October 2006. Christine Lagarde has been France’s finance minister since June 2007 and Jacek Rostowski has been Poland’s finance minister since November 2007. György Matolcsy, Hungary’s economics minister, who currently chairs the meetings of EU finance ministers, is one of the newest to the job, having been appointed in May 2010. Only Latvia’s Andris Vilks, the UK’s George Osborne and Miroslav Kalousek from the Czech Republic were appointed more recently.